8.
NOT ON OUR TURF: BARRIERS TO DEVELOPMENT
N O P RINTING A LLOWED
I N 1445 IN THE G ERMAN city of Mainz, Johannes Gutenberg
unveiled an innovation with profound consequences for
subsequent economic history: a printing press based on
movable type. Until then, books either had to be hand-
copied by scribes, a very slow and laborious process, or
they were block-printed with specific pieces of wood cut for
printing each page. Books were few and far between, and
very expensive. After Gutenberg’s invention, things began
to change. Books were printed and became more readily
available. Without this innovation, mass literacy and
education would have been impossible.
In Western Europe, the importance of the printing press
was quickly recognized. In 1460 there was already a
printing press across the border, in Strasbourg, France. By
the late 1460s the technology had spread throughout Italy,
with presses in Rome and Venice, soon followed by
Florence, Milan, and Turin. By 1476 William Caxton had set
up a printing press in London, and two years later there
was one in Oxford. During the same period, printing spread
throughout the Low Countries, into Spain, and even into
Eastern Europe, with a press opening in Budapest in 1473
and in Cracow a year later.
Not everyone saw printing as a desirable innovation. As
early as 1485 the Ottoman sultan Bayezid II issued an edict
that Muslims were expressly forbidden from printing in
Arabic. This rule was further reinforced by Sultan Selim I in
1515. It was not until 1727 that the first printing press was
allowed in the Ottoman lands. Then Sultan Ahmed III issued
a decree granting İbrahim Müteferrika permission to set up
a press. Even this belated step was hedged with restraints.
Though the decree noted “the fortunate day this Western
technique will be unveiled like a bride and will not again be